


In the Nikk of Time

by Chapstick12



Category: The Young and the Restless
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:14:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25640395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chapstick12/pseuds/Chapstick12
Summary: After Sharon's death, Faith accidentally sends Tessa back in time and into the arms of Nikki Reed.
Relationships: Mariah Copeland/Tessa Porter, Tessa Porter/Nikki Newman
Comments: 10
Kudos: 7





	In the Nikk of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: While Lola does not appear in this fic, there is a mention of her name. If that fills you with rage, I get it. I really do.

The light was starting to dim over the Newman Ranch as they arrived home. Rey, Faith, Mariah, and Tessa silently entered and sat in the living room, none of them sure what to do next. 

“It was a really nice service,” Tessa said once the silence switched from comfortable to excruciating. 

There were nods but still no one spoke. Tessa turned to Mariah. “Are you hungry?” She addressed Rey and Faith. “I can make something if you ...” She let her thought trail off when she realized food was the last thing on their minds. 

Faith stood up suddenly. “I’m going to my room.”

“Do you want me to —“ Mariah started but Faith had already reached the stairs. 

“I wanna be alone.” 

More silence. 

“I could use a drink,” Rey said. 

The girls agreed. 

***

Rey, Mariah, and Tessa sat around the table, sipping whiskey, still not saying much. Tessa’s heart broke for Mariah and all she could think about was how to help her, how to fix her, if either of those things were even possible. She took hold of her girlfriend’s hand under the table and drew small, adoring circles with her thumb. Mariah squeezed her hand back and Tessa knew she was doing something to help, even if it was small. 

Rey topped off his glass, took a drink, and sighed. “I might leave Genoa City.”

“Oh,” was all Mariah could manage. 

“Are you thinking of going back to Miami?” Tessa asked. 

“I don’t know. After what happened to Lola ...”

“Right,” Tessa remembered the horrible incident.

Rey stared off into nothing. “Less than a dozen alligator attacks and Lola had to be one of them. At least they found her eye.”

Rey reached into his coat pocket and produced a small glass case holding a human eyeball. It’s all I have left of her,” he sobbed.

Mariah and Tessa tried to comfort him without looking at the encased eyeball. He did this a lot.

“Maybe you should go lie down for a while,” Tessa suggested.

“In our bed?!” Rey cried.

“Or the couch,” Mariah tried.

Through wet eyes, Rey glanced at the couch and thought about all the sex he and Sharon had had on it. His lip trembled. He swiftly stood up, walked towards the door and pulled on his coat. “I’m going to the station,” was all he said before he left.

Mariah and Tessa looked at each other and shrugged.

***

Faith paced around her bedroom, angry, heartbroken, looking to blame someone. Because someone had to pay. Her parents were often garbage but she never wanted to lose either of them. And she lost the best one. Yes, someone had to pay. She opened her closet door and crawled inside. Faith moved around clothes and boxes until she reached the back of the closet. She ran her hand along the wall, looking for the tiniest notch. In the dark, her hand found it. She pressed the notch with purpose, allowing the back wall to open, revealing a long stone staircase. Her grandfather had shown this to her when she was little. It was their secret hiding spot that only they knew about. Some nights, her grandfather would accidentally wake her up as he snuck into the closet. He’d turn around and put his finger to his lips, indicating it was a secret. Whenever he went missing for weeks at a time, Faith never said a word. Over the years, she made it her own and skipping off the last step into what she now considered to be her lair, Faith looked around, searching for something, anything that would make things okay again. 

“Hey,” called a male voice.

Faith turned her attention to the back corner. The cage.

“You’re back,” the voice called again.

Faith slowly approached the cage. He looked pathetic. His greasy hair clung to his face, the chains ever so slowly scratching off the skin around his wrists and ankles. His suit was wrinkled and that made Faith happiest of all.

“Hello, Theo,” she spat out.

“Faith. You have to let me out. It’s been months. How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?”

“You hit on me.”

“Just some harmless flirting. I’m a good guy!”

“I’m 15!”

“But you look older. So --”

“Stop talking.”

“But --”

“Or I’ll cut off your dick.”

Theo snapped his mouth shut. He knew Faith was serious. He saw what she had done to Fen. He saw it every time he closed his eyes. But it was the screams that kept him awake at night. The screams. While Faith went to her workbench across the room, Theo moved to a corner of his cell and sat down on the cold concrete floor. This was his fate. No one was missing him. No one was looking for him. He was going to die very slowly and all alone. 

“It’s probably for the best.” 

“I said shut the fuck up, pervert!”

Theo was shaken out of what he thought was a private reverie in his head but apparently he had accidently spoken out loud. He remained still, hoping Faith would calm down before inflicting any additional pain. She turned back around to her work and Theo let out a very quiet sigh of relief.

“Sniveling little bitch,” Faith muttered as she continued to focus on a small device she turned over and over in her hands. To any lay person, this was just an ordinary bracelet. But the lay person had no idea of Faith’s intelligence. Her savant-like understanding of chemistry and physics led her to this untested discovery last year. Faith lit up a cigarette and studied the bracelet closer. Could this be the answer?

“If I could just go back …”

“Won’t work,” Theo piped up from his cage. His newfound hopelessness provided enough courage to speak to his captor. 

Faith dropped the bracelet on the bench and sighed.

“I know what that thing does,” he said. “And it won’t work.”

“What do you know?!”

“I know you want to change what happened to your mom. But you can’t. Look, I get it. I lost my mom young too. It’s a rough hand, you know? But you keep going. You push through. You … try to be the best person you can be.” He was really reaching with this trademark sob story.

Faith, while generally immune to his charms, actually considered this.

“It was cancer, Faith,” Theo continued. “You can’t go back and fix that. Well, I guess if she may have watched her stress levels and stopped eating sugar …”

“That’s it!” Faith stood up and walked over to Theo’s cage. He was more intrigued than frightened.

“What’s it? Sugar?”

“Stress. That’s what caused this. My mom was stressed all the time!” Faith began to pace, deep in thought. “But who inflicted the most stress?”

“Your dad. Phyllis. Your dad banging Phyllis. Mariah, probably -- “

Faith stopped. She slowly turned and looked at Theo through the bars. Her eyes narrowed, her teeth clenched.

“Mariah.”

***

“Do you think Rey’s gonna be okay?” Tessa asked while removing the pillows from the bed.

“What? Oh, yeah, he’ll be fine. He just needs time,” Mariah replied as she slipped off her dress. 

Tessa stripped the comforter and sheets from the bed. She looked up at Mariah. “And what about you? Are you gonna be okay?”

Mariah sighed as she grabbed a black latex jumpsuit from the closet. “Tess …”

“Hey,” Tessa stopped her. “I know you’re not fine and that’s okay. But you have been pretty stoic through all this and I know what happens when you keep everything bottled up.”

“Mount Mariah?”

Tessa smiled, ignoring the double entendre and she attached the restraints to the corners of the mattress.

“I guess I just need some time too,” Mariah offered with a small smile as Tessa walked towards her.

“Take all the time you need. I’m here.” Tessa gently zipped the back of Mariah’s outfit. She carefully, lovingly pulled the vinyl mask over Mariah’s head and unzipped the mouth. “And I love you,” she said, as she carefully kissed Mariah’s mouth through the mask.

“Get on the bed,” Mariah ordered to Tessa’s delight.

***

“Mariah has always been the problem. Ever since she came to Genoa City she’s been a cancer,” Faith looked up at Theo through her pacing. “A literal cancer!”

Theo raised his eyebrow at this 15-year-old logic but he remained silent, hoping Faith would wear herself out and fall asleep. When she slept, he slept. As well as he could, anyway.

“No one turned my mom’s world upside down like she did. Ginger bitch. I swear to god, this is all her fault. She pops up and it’s like the rest of us don’t exist. I don’t exist. It was always about Cassie and then it was always about Mariah. What about me?!” Faith yelled through tears. Theo didn’t know if this was a rhetorical question so he just kept his mouth shut. “I will ruin her. If I can go back, I can stop her from coming here. And if I can’t stop her, then I’ll stop her.” Faith’s dead eyes stared at Theo. “You know what I mean.”

Theo thought back to Fen. He knew exactly what she meant.

Theo spent the next three hours observing Faith walk from white board to white board, one with an equation she kept tweaking and another kept a timeline with Mariah at the center of it all. Finally, Faith’s brain started to overload and she took a break on the couch, at once time sitting and contemplating but then slouching further and further down until slept took over. Theo was at last free to close his eyes.

***

Tessa couldn’t sleep and it wasn’t the scratches on her back this time. No, this time her mind stayed busy with thoughts of her girlfriend. This was the most devastating thing to ever happen to Mariah but she kept going and going and going. Planning the service. Taking care of Faith. Taking care of Rey. She knew Mariah had trouble letting herself be vulnerable with other people and she also knew she would need to aggressively intervene to make sure she didn’t lose Mariah to the grief. Tessa wouldn’t be getting any sleep. She removed the flogger that was resting on her stomach and glanced at her love who was sleeping peacefully and Tessa took solace in that.

She crept out of the room and into hallway. Before descending down the stairs, Tessa caught a glimpse of light from under Faith’s bedroom door. It was 3:00 in the morning. Tessa assumed she fallen asleep with the light on. She quietly opened Faith’s door to find an empty room. She quickly glanced at the window, assuming Faith had slipped out but then she felt a cold pocket when she walked by the open closet. She stopped and crawled inside, thinking she’d find Faith. Instead, a faint light caught her eye. Green light from behind a tiny crack of an opening. Tessa explored the wall and accidentally hit the notch. The door slowly opened and Tessa was stunned to find the staircase. She very carefully walked down the stairs, expecting to find literally anything because this was the Newman Ranch. Nevertheless, Tessa was shocked to see Faith’s lair. The whiteboards, the tech, and Theo in a cage. She gasped. With Faith and Theo sleeping soundly, Tessa felt comfortable snooping around. She walked towards the workbench, stopping at the timeline. “What is this?” she wondered. She noticed the bracelet on the workbench and because there is no person more lay than Tessa, “Is this my bracelet?” she wondered aloud as she slipped it onto her wrist. The bracelet lit up and emitted a low whirring sound that woke up Theo. He jumped to his feet.

“Tessa!” he loudly whispered but Tessa was finding it difficult to stay upright, the bracelet pulling her arm back and forth.

“Tessa! You gotta get me out of her! Faith is fucking crazy!”

“A little busy here, dickwad,” Tessa replied through involuntary spins. 

“The women in this town,” Theo rolled his eyes and sat back down.

The ruckus eventually woke Faith. Her eyes widened when she saw the bracelet on Tessa’s wrist. 

“Tessa,” Faith said evenly. “Tessa, you have to take that off.”

“I -- I can’t!” Tessa yelled. “I tried!”

Faith got up and inched toward Tessa but a quick blue flash knocked her back onto the couch. Theo buried his eyes. Then there was silence.

And Tessa was gone.

***

Tessa felt pain in her body before she realized she was awake. She opened her eyes and saw stars. Actual stars. The night sky to be exact. She was on her back in a patch of grass next to a small parking lot. Tessa was confused and frightened. Where was she and what had happened? Just then a pair of headlights shone brightly in her eyes and she covered them, trying to see the car that pulled up right in front of her. The engine turned off and the lights went out. Tessa adjusted her eyes to the return of darkness but could only make out a pair of vinyl knee-high boots that were oddly familiar in some strange way. The boots came closer and stopped before her. She looked up at a face so sweet and comforting, she instantly felt at ease. Tessa clocked her at around 25, her blonde hair dancing over her shoulders, eyes as kind as a grandmother’s.

“Well, hello. And who might you be?” the woman asked.

Tessa rubbed her head. “I -- I don’t know,” she said, suddenly alarmed at the realization that she didn’t remember anything.

The woman stretched out her hand. 

“I’m Nikki Reed. Come with me.”


End file.
